Tim Moffitt and Brian Turner are in a hotly contested race to represent a district that includes southern and western Buncombe County.

ASHEVILLE – State House candidates Tim Moffitt and Brian Turner wrangled over school funding, the city water system and whether the General Assembly has taken North Carolina too far to the right during a debate Tuesday on two local radio stations.

Moffitt, the Republican incumbent in House District 115, said the General Assembly's Republican majority inherited major fiscal problems left by Democrats four years ago and has raised education spending each year, just not as much as school and university officials would have liked.

"We have done an admirable job of restoring funding for education," he said.

Turner cited news accounts of officials at North Carolina State University and Western Carolina University outlining specific budget cuts at their institutions because of legislative actions and successful efforts by other school districts to recruit North Carolina teachers over pay issues as examples of school budget problems.

"We have teachers who are leaving to go to other states ... to make more money," Turner said.

The two debated for almost an hour on stations WWNC-570 AM and WPEK-880 AM. They are in a hotly contested race to represent a district that includes southern and western Buncombe County.

They talked over each other at times in the less-structured debate. Moffitt said Turner "has difficulty with the truth" and Turner told Moffitt it is "interesting" that Moffitt is complaining about outside groups targeting him in advertising while Moffitt's campaign has "launched attack ads" against Turner.

Moffitt said the fact that Turner did not attend public schools and sends his daughter to a private school makes his assessment of the situation unconvincing.

"When you have no relevant experience with public education, I think those attacks are hollow," Moffitt said.

Turner said Moffitt, who had supported a state program that helps some parents with the cost of private school, was employing a double standard.

Moffitt said the private school funding program is a good idea because, "Ultimately parents are in the best position to determine what's best for their children."

Turner opposed the program, saying, "Public dollars should stay in the public schools."

Moffitt said he pursued the right course by sponsoring a bill that would give control of the Asheville water system to the Metropolitan Sewerage District without compensation.

He said news media have misrepresented the issue and that the current structure, in which City Council sets policy for a system that serves people who live inside and outside the city limits, amounts to "taxation without representation."

Turner said he would take a more collegial approach to water issues.

"You sit the people down. You try to work through the issue," he said. The fact that the bill Moffitt got passed has been found unconstitutional — although that decision is being appealed — shows that he "has gone through the process the wrong way," Turner said.

Moffitt said he is comfortable with the general direction the legislature has taken under four years of Republican rule.

"We have taken the state on a more fiscally conservative path," he said. "Being the reformers that we are, we could anticipate catching a lot of heat."

Turner said tax cuts the General Assembly adopted threaten the financial health of state government and that changes were "too far too fast. ... I'm trying to find the middle ground between where the Democrats were and where the Republican administration is now."

The candidates both said they support gun rights and oppose toll roads.